Mary-Anne was born in London in 1953 but has lived in East Anglia
since she was ten. Blessed with enormous energy, she fills her
time with rearing rare breed Norfolk Horn sheep, enjoying the
springtime lambing, as well as breeding golden retrievers and
running a school uniform shop at the school where her two sons
attended. Mary-Anne always had a sewing kit on the go and a friend
seeing her aptitude for textile work, recommended that she went
to a textile master class run by Jill Carter at Coggeshall. She
then started a City and Guilds course at Chelmsford, but, finding
it to be restrictive, transferred to the Opus School of Textile
Art at Regents College in London. Here she was inspired by Julia
Caprara to realize the creative potential in the medium and still
does the occasional term with her at Opus in Harrow on the Hill.
Mary-Anne enjoys experimenting with all kinds of fabrics, papers
and threads, always trying out new ideas, working them through
in her head and working them through with her hands, pushing them
as far as they will go, taking ideas to the extreme and never
giving up. Through this work she has discovered new qualities
of self-discipline and confidence.
Using the medium of textiles, Mary-Anne has created a series of
works investigating the concept of rhythm. These pieces, inspired
by Japanese forms and processes, explore notions of strength,
movement and tension through the manipulation of materials. The
“Rhythm” series began with her experimenting with
one long piece of paper or fabric curled to create an organic
form. In the process of repeating these forms and thereby making
endless multiples, she completes the three dimensional piece.
All of her work involves aspects of stitching, weaving, folding,
tying or pleating, both by hand and machine. She prefers to work
in white: “almost without realizing it” as it does
not distract from the purity of form.
Appreciating the importance of presentation resulted in a method
of displaying the soft, rounded textile forms of the “Rhythm”
series in rigid perspex boxes to “catch” the shapes
created. This dynamic tension between the organic and the man-made
is central to her aesthetic and operates as a means by which she
engages with the idea of opposites; bringing together the contained
and the uncontrolled, the measured and the accidental, thereby
creating a harmonious whole.
Mary-Anne is a member of the ‘62 Group of Textile Artists,
which is an organization that promotes textile art in major national
and international venues. She is an elected member of the Suffolk
Crafts Society and the Society of Designer Craftsmen. In 2006
her work was exhibited in a selected collection by Pfaff which
toured Europe, and she had two 3D pieces of work on tour with
Art of the Stitch. Her work is exhibited annually in the Mall
Galleries, London and it is frequently selected for international
touring exhibitions.